Knitting so much that my hand actually hurt while typing today

I learned the hard way today that entering data after a weekend of some hard-core knitting is a good way to make my hands down-right sore! But, boy, was it a productive weekend. Sure, I did the necessary cleaning and other chores; other than that, I spent this weekend blissfully at home working on a number of projects. I escaped the house only a couple of times and one of my trips was with Chuck to the Okemos Farmer's Market. That place sure had changed since my last trip there a couple of years ago -- there was so many more vendors and a ton of people milling about. On the one hand, it was good to see so many folks there to support the farmer's market; on the other hand, I had new respsect for Chuck who usually made the trip solo. I hate crowds, so as my reward, Chuck bought me a wonderful bouquet of flowers. What you see here is only a third of the bunch, with the other thirds occupying vases on our sitting-room mantle and in my bathroom. These definitely cheer up our house.

Now, on to the knitting....

Nancy's Long-wrap Cardigan:

While it was a productive weekend, let me not give you the impression that it was a completely successful weekend. I finished the long-wrap cardigan that Nancy had designed, but learned a very valuable lesson about blocking and not checking in on how thing's're going. I hand-washed the sweater and marveled at how wonderfully soft it was as it was being placed onto my wooly board last Wednesday evening. Unfortunately for me, I treated this poor sweater like a Ronco Rotisserie and decided to "set it and forget it". When I returned to check on this sweater Friday, it had sagged in length to the point where when I put it on, it went clear to my knees. Now, I know that those types of sweaters are somewhat stylish for gals with the right physique, but trust me when I tell you that I am not one of those women. After showing it to Nancy on Friday (during which, she was far more kind than I deserved), we laid out two options: one--was to give it a go in the washer to see if it would shrink up some, or two--tear out several inches and re-do the bottom border. Nancy had given me three hanks of Kona to use for this sweater, but I only needed one and a half. I gave her back the unused hank, but she suggested that I try out the shrinking on a large swatch, so I still have the remaining half hank. Thinking about it some more, the yarn is a superwash, so I'm not entirely convinced that the washer approach will do much; besides, I'm happy with its circumference and don't see how I could prevent losing size in both directions without wet-felting it by hand. Needless to say, this sweater is now torn back to where I need it to be to restart the border.


Vilai socks:

I really need to give my friend Rachel from my8kidsmom a big hug the next time I see her because her suggestion of me doing a Cookie A sock pattern has really worked out for me. I finished and blocked sock #1 and am working on its mate, which is going so much faster than the first sock. And, I also put Sylvain to work making me a pair of wire sock blockers. Even though he wouldn't admit it, deep down, I think he enjoyed contributing something to this effort.



Trapeze-line jacket:

I also got a good start on the Trapeze-line jacket by Bergere de France. I hope that this is the sweater project that breaks my streak of making sweaters that don't fit me. I'm a little worried because this sweater is curling at the bottom already, but am trying not to judge it too early.



Last, but not least -- a finished Woven Market bag:

Yep, you read that right -- I finally finished my Woven Market bag. Sorry, Nancy, if you're reading this because I just plain couldn't get my act together to write-up the pattern and submit it to the "I made it on my Schacht" contest. Irene graciously gave me some fun fabric for the liner; and both Chuck and Sylvain had scattered by the time I was ready to sew in the lining, so I didn't have anyone to help by taking a photo of me working on this bag (which was one of the contest requirements). Besides, I'm sure they wanted photos of the project on the loom rather than during the very last of the finishing. Who knows, there's always next year, right? At any rate, I am the absolute worst seamstress, so if you happen to see this bag up close and personal, I'll admit here and now that I had cut the fabric wrong, ending up with the bag being too wide for the fabric, and ending up fudging the seam around the top. I don't expect that most people would ever notice if the bag is seen in passing, so that's one of the reasons I'm not letting it get to me so much.


At the movies and on the tube:
It seems like forever since I've given an update on my movie and t.v. watching....so while my memory still holds:

Finished watching Seasons 1 of Dead Like Me and True Blood. I really enjoyed them both, and am left wondering why Season 2 of Dead isn't yet available. I can't wait 'til Season 2 of True Blood is available, but that'll be quite a while since it hasn't even wrapped on HBO yet.

The Haunting in Connecticut: To be fair, I didn't finish watching this movie, so my opinion may be a little skewed. But, c'mon, I was getting downright bored, which is really sad because I usually knit while watching movies. I didn't find this scary at all.

I Love You, Man: I'm not really a Paul Rudd fan, and don't really care for the guy-humor types of movies, but rented this one from the Blockbuster store for Chuck and ended up liking it. I like Jason Segel and think that he contributed a lot to my enjoyment of this movie.

District 9: I loved this movie and enjoyed it start to finish. It really is too bad that more sci-fi movies like this aren't made. Yes, it's incredibly violent, and that was somewhat expected, but, really, anyone that wants a calm alien movie should go see Contact.

Inglorious Basterds: Brad Pitt and Quentin Tarantino, need I say more? Unlike District 9, Chuck and I saw this at the theater while Sylvain was at a sleep-over; we didn't see it opening weekend because I didn't want to take him to this movie since I knew that the violence would be over the top and the language unpredictable. I was very glad that we made that decision since some of the scenes were true to the preview where Pitt's Lt. Aldo Raine declares that every one of his men owes him 100 scalps and he definitely gets 'em. Also, I totally agree with every reviewer that says that co-star Christoph Waltz steals every scene he's in.

War: I'm not entirely sure what it is about Jason Statham movies that I find so entertaining, but I guess whenever I'm in the mood for a shoot 'em up/explosion/hand to hand combat movie, his seem to fulfill that void, then I'm good for a long while. I wouldn't call this a good movie, but it was something the three of us could agree on to watch Saturday night, and it was free since there's a Showtime on DirectTV promotion going on for the next two months....oh, and the jury is still out on Jet Li.

I also re-watched The Golden Compass, 21 Grams, and Conan the Destroyer. All three left me in wonderment -- for Compass, I wondered what was going on with The Subtle Knife, which was *supposed* to come out this year. I really hope they make all three movies. If you follow the link above, you'll head over to a page with a fan-made trailer for the second movie. The first minute of the trailer had me in awe as to where this fan could have possibly gotten a hold of such great footage to splice together into a trailer. The second minute made me feel for them in that they should have stopped after the first minute of their trailer. Regardless, I hope they don't wait too long because they'll have to recast the kids as they'll be too old for their parts. For 21 Grams, I was left pretty damned depressed and happy that my life isn't nearly as bad as anything those characters faced....Ever....And for Conan: seeing Wilt the Stilt standing next to Ahhh-nold made me realize just what a beast that man is and left me wondering why more basketball players aren't recruited to act in movies in which freakishly large men are needed, like alien or fantasy movies.

Well, I have to go. Sylvain's been nagging me off and on for the past hour that his crops are dying on Facebook....